Notes

NOTES TO THE ANTIQUARY.

Note A, p. #.--Mottoes.

["It was in correcting the proof-sheets of this novel that Scott first
took to equipping his chapters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On
one occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him,
to hunt for a particular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did as he
was bid, but did not succeed in discovering the lines. 'Hang it,
Johnnie,' cried Scott, 'I believe I can make a motto sooner than you will
find one.' He did so accordingly; and from that hour, whenever memory
failed to suggest an appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the
inexhaustible mines of "old play" or "old ballad," to which we owe some
of the most exquisite verses that ever flowed from his pen."--_J. G.
Lockhart._

See also the Introduction to "Chronicles of the Canongate," vol. xix.]

Note B, p. #.--Sandy Gordon's Itinerarium.

[This well-known work, the "Itinerarium Septentrionale, or a Journey
thro' most of the Counties of Scotland, and those in the North of
England," was published at London in 1727, folio. The author states, that
in prosecuting his work he "made a pretty laborious progress through
almost every part of Scotland for three years successively." Gordon was
a native of Aberdeenshire, and had previously spent some years in
travelling abroad, probably as a tutor. He became Secretary to the London
Society of Antiquaries in 1736. This office he resigned in 1741, and soon
after went out to South Carolina with Governor Glen, where he obtained a
considerable grant of land. On his death, about the year 1753, he is said
to have left "a handsome estate to his family."--See _Literary Anecdotes
of Bowyer,_ by John Nichols, vol. v., p. 329, etc.]

Note C, p. #.--Praetorium.

It may be worth while to mention that the incident of the supposed
Praetorium actually happened to an antiquary of great learning and
acuteness, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, one of the Barons of the Scottish
Court of Exchequer, and a parliamentary commissioner for arrangement of
the Union between England and Scotland. As many of his writings show, Sir
John was much attached to the study of Scottish antiquities. He had a
small property in Dumfriesshire, near the Roman station on the hill
called Burrenswark. Here he received the distinguished English
antiquarian Roger Gale, and of course conducted him to see this
remarkable spot, where the lords of the world have left such decisive
marks of their martial labours.

An aged shepherd whom they had used as a guide, or who had approached
them from curiosity, listened with mouth agape to the dissertations on
foss and vellum, ports _dextra,